PC Cards, also known as PCMCIA cards, are designed according to a well-defined industry standard. This standard governs many aspects of PC Cards including relevant mechanical standards which include the requirements of the card's 68-pin host connector, overall dimensions and operating environment.
Assembly and testing of PC Cards can be problematic due to the defining standard. For example, as PC Cards are quite small, the allocation of test points on the card is severely restricted. Thus, it is difficult to make many electrical connections to PC Cards for the purposes of testing and initial configuration (for example, programming memories and programmable logic). Furthermore, the thinness of the PC Cards severely restricts the use of many conventional connectors due to mechanical constraints. Thus, establishing electrical connection to a PC Card during assembly and testing is problematic.
One type of connector previously used in non-PC Card applications is the card-edge connector. However, to date, the card-edge connector remains excluded from PC Card applications for several reasons. Firstly, by nature of the PC Card standard, card-edge connectors are not viable as external connectors in a packaged card as they do not provide the required shielding and electrostatic discharge protection. Secondly, PC Card printed wiring boards ("PWBs") are thin (e.g., 0.018") and not suitable for the standard edge-card connectors which require a PWB thickness of, e.g., 0.062". Also, conventional card-edge connectors require excessive contact area for use in the limited space of a PC Card. Thus, edge-card connector techniques have been heretofor excluded from PC Cards.
Other types of connectors exist, but are not conventionally used in connection with PC Card technology. For example, turning briefly to FIG. 1, prior art usage of one other type of connector 13 is shown. A conventional PWB 11 (i.e., a `thick`, non-PC Card PWB) has connector 13 connected thereto. A flat cable 15 (or flexible printed circuitry) is plugged into connector 13 thereby electrically connecting thereto.
The present invention is directed towards a card-edge connectivity solution for PC Card configuration and testing.